Jeffrey Friedman has written much about ideology, mostly negative. He’s got an axe to grind with libertarians, and I don’t disagree (at a certain abstract level), but seeing him go round and round with the types of libertarians for whom his charge of Rothbardian dogma doesn’t apply makes me wonder if he is largely acting out of a “familiarity breeds contempt” inspired confrontational style combined with his affinity for political and social science as a whole, as opposed to merely economics and the narrow slough of libertarian thinkers. (He directs his wrath particularly at the Mises Institute, which I can say from experience really is a hotbed of an echo chamber of a choir if I’ve ever witnessed one – but their resurrection of Old Right voices is something I appreciate.)

I’d defend a “reasonable” ideology as well (who wouldn’t defend “reasonable”?). Although ideologues are prone to the dogma Friedman has discussed at length, they are also undeniably more knowledgeable than your lay citizen. Ideologues may be prone to a perceptual blindness that limits their ability to “reasonably” absorb all pertinent data, but at least they’ve got data.

And “Centrism” is an ideology too. If it’s no more than an attitudinal disposition that believes that whatever is “best,” by default, must be the split difference between two opposing sides, I suppose it doesn’t qualify. But there’s no way Obama is acting out of that kind of ignorance of history and political thought. He is no more anti-ideological than many in the Progressive movement, self described pragmatists who consciously and meticulously crafted, in the words of Philip Converse, “a configuration of ideas and attitudes in which the elements are bound together by some form of constraint or functional interdependence.” In other words, an ideology.

Btw, you can see videos from the 2008 APSA Critical Review seminar here.

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4 Responses to “Mario Rizzo, Jeffrey Friedman and Ideology”

Rereading that old AE thread made me sad that Jeffrey doesn’t blog and Matthew drifted off into philosophy.

Ilya Somin of Volokh has a post on centrism as an ideology here. Micha Ghertner has one on the philosophy of pragmatism and its relation to economics here. Some Randians have accused me of adhering to that.

I’d defend a “reasonable” ideology as well (who wouldn’t defend “reasonable”?)
“I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool!”

“Is there such a thing as being non-ideological that isn’t an ideology, in the sense, of drawing an analogue, that atheism is not a religion but the lack of it?”

Perhaps critical rationalism would be such a thing.

teageegeepea:

“And “Centrism” is an ideology too. If it’s no more than an attitudinal disposition that believes that whatever is “best,” by default, must be the split difference between two opposing sides, I suppose it doesn’t qualify.”

Yeah. A major defect is that its underlying criterion for evaluating a position is to see where it is situated between other positions instead of evaluating whether it is correct or coherent.

I wrote about this and the related nonsense about market fundamentalism here:

Is there such a thing as being non-ideological that isn’t an ideology…

I think “non-ideological” describes the public generally, as ignorance combined with (sometimes cynical) indifference can’t possibly amount to an ideology, because ideologues are informed and fairly certain of their beliefs. I wouldn’t even say the folks at Overcoming Bias are non-ideological ideologues, but rather more like Centrists who operate in the theoretical rather than practical political realm

Reminds me of at university, the typical catchphrase to get people to care about politics and take a stance — everything is ideological, even if you say you aren’t, that itself is a ideology.

On the atheism vs. relgion analogue. I think the kind of intellectuals that in earlier times would have been suggesting that if you aren’t Christian, and purport to be agnostic (or atheist), you’re “objectively” an enemy, have simply politicized society anew using more contemporary reference points.